


Brotherhood

by sxetia



Category: Final Fantasy X
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, FFX spoilers, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Training, X-2 is not canon, Yuna is autistic, past referenced Tidus/Yuna, post-FFX
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 23:23:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29990412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxetia/pseuds/sxetia
Summary: Yuna is burdened with the possession of something that does not belong to her. It keeps her awake at night.
Relationships: Yuna & Wakka
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Brotherhood

**Author's Note:**

> FFX-2 Is Not Canon, but I found it interesting that Yuna uses the Brotherhood in the Warrior job class and mimics Tidus's animations there. here's a potential way as to how that happened.

Yuna has always lived a spartan life — she has always figured it to be the most reasonable course of action, an act of consideration for those who would have had to pick up the pieces after her inevitable death. All of her belongings fit in a small bag that she could carry on the small of her back, on her person, or in her hands — the less the better, considering the great lengths she would have had to travel on her pilgrimage and the fact that she refused to burden Kimahri with any dead weight. She never even had a home of her own; after her father's death she had always stayed with either Lulu or Wakka. 

As such, it is more than a little troubling to be faced with the very concept of indulgence or attempt to acclimate to it. She lives in a small hut in the middle of Besaid, having hoped in vein that the modest nature of her home would have attracted less well-wishers and visitors, that lies mostly empty and still: hardly a single decoration or a body ever take up space within Yuna's home, almost-perpetually empty considering that she prefers to do the visiting and spend time our of the house when she can help it. 

All of this makes the Brotherhood that much more peculiar as it lays propped against the doorway: it is a constant reminder of the emptiness and the _absence_ that accompanies it. 

Its extravagance and morbid beauty accentuates the plainness of Yuna's home, and provides her with a passive pressure to take care of it as if it were a child: she polishes it every time she finds a spare moment (one of the weapons salesman south of Besaid provided her with the necessities) and always takes the time to preen over it and marvel the intricacies of its design: the ever-flowing water of its blade ripples every time she touches it, but the surface refuses to give to her touch. The handle is designed awkwardly, form-over-function with spiraled engravings cutting into one's palm as they hold it, but then Yuna figures the only person that she has ever seen use it always wore gloves. She replaced the ribbon (which had grown matted, stained and torn, as its previous owner had never taken particularly good care of the thing) with a brand-new and tucked the original away for safekeeping, as a memento of sorts. 

Each time she cleans the sword she tries placing it somewhere else, just to see how it feels — on her table, leaned against her bed, _in_ her bed, hung over a window... but the truth of the matter, she quietly acknowledges, is that it belongs in a pair of hands that no longer existed (and never really existed to begin with). And so, whenever she sets it aside and tries to give it peace, the Brotherhood sits there, staring at her, demanding motion and yearning for belonging. 

And so, well into the twilight hours of warm nights such as these, Yuna humors it — or attempts to. 

The Brotherhood is the sort of weapon that is intended to be wielded by those of strong souls and stronger bodies — Crusaders, for example, or blitzballers. As confident as Yuna has become, she is still slight of strength: she is small and stout, and the edges of her body are softened by lazy pudge instead of defined by chiseled muscle. Her first instinct when picking up is to hold it in the slack, one-handed manner that she spent so many hours watching during her pilgrimage — but each time she lifts it and holds it up in the air, she can keep it erect for perhaps a second before her arm begins trembling and it topples over, tip of the blade buried in the sand. She has to heft it up with both hands and balance it on her shoulder just to make it out of the entrance and behind her house with it, and some nights she has to drag it! More dirt to muddy it with, more she would have have to polish it and clean it... 

And yet she never relents. 

Eventually she finds that it helps to put all of her weight on her back foot — and now she takes clumsy, imprecise swings that take both hands and immediately destroys her sense of balance, sending her staggering forward and once again goring the earth beneath her feet. A frustrating experience, but one she perpetuates like a ritual every time the feeling in the air demands it. 

Something to dedicate herself to, something to focus on when feeling listless. 

Often, when battling the empty air and fighting her own weapon (well, the weapon she uses — it feels perverse to refer to the Brotherhood as properly _hers_ ) she puts forth a great deal of exertion and leaves herself panting and heaving and sweating and making a _mess_ of herself, completely ignorant to the noises she makes or how far their resonance might carry. There are times where Yuna can convince herself that she is squaring off against a tangible foe and that she has something to prove, or that putting everything she can into running in circles with the Brotherhood in hand will eventually burn up the consternation that's sat dormant within ever since she became a High Summoner. 

The Brotherhood pierces the grass and nearly takes Yuna down with it as she heaves over its hilt. Perspiration drips off of her forehead and joins the eternal tides of the blade as she stops for a moment to catch her breath — and feels a dull ache in her palm. She turns her hand over to find that she's cut herself on the grip again and that bright red blood has started to lap at the dull beige of her palm, something that makes her curse under her breath. 

Yuna begins to lean on the pommel and wipe it on her shorts when she inverts herself and spots a tall silhouette in the moonlight — broad, unassuming, hair a mile in the sky. She registers who it is in an instant, and the elation brawls with the embarrassment inside her. 

"Uhm—... Hi, Wakka." Suddenly Yuna is not so loud. 

Wakka rubs the back of his neck. "You winnin'?" 

She cannot even say with certainty that she is, even against an imaginary adversary. "Well—... I'm not sure, to be entirely honest with you. I've been—..." A vague gesture at the scraped earth all around her. "...practicing." Yuna probably looks ridiculous, standing drenched with sweat in her nightclothes, huffing and puffing in the moonlight, sword in hand and earthen viscera left in her wake... 

"What for? Never really took you for the type to wanna fight any more than you had to, ya?" He steps forwards, revealing that gentle smile he seems to always wear — and the tension fades, bit by bit. Wakka does not offer judgment but quiet endearment, and that makes the relief wash over her in waves. "Heard ya makin' noise all the way from me and Lulu's place so I stepped out to see what the commotion was about, but—... now I've just got even _more_ questions, y'know?" 

Yuna wipes the sweat from her brow and, inadvertently, smears a little of her own blood across her forehead. It is macabre, but barely noticeable in the low light. She attempts to bring the words forward, make reasoning into response, but finds that the pieces don't align in the way she wants them to. Empty hands are siphons for valuable energy — she brings her hand back to the pommel of the Brotherhood and fidgets with the ribbon (which is getting a little dirty much like its predecessor). Then a noise, a tiny "mm" from her throat, only to shrug her shoulders. 

"Well—... the Brotherhood is... really my only memento of _you-know-who_ and so I'd... I'd really prefer to keep it around, but having it in my house sitting around... it bothers me, I suppose." 

"Bothers ya?" Wakka's tone suggests that he takes offense to her discomfort with the sword, and Yuna immediately makes the connection between it and its original owner: Chappu. But Yuna knows Wakka: he is patient and understands how her mind works and has done so since she was very small. He may not understand, but he will always accept. 

She takes a deep breath and tries again. "I... I can't find a good place for it. A place that makes sense. And... well, sometimes it's as if it's speaking to me — you know, in the same manner that passed love ones 'speak' to you in the Farplane. Like it's... like it wants to be used. It seems like a shame to just leave it sitting around, so... I try try get out when I can and try to... train with it, I suppose. Figure out how to use a sword myself." 

By the time she gets the words out Wakka has already approached, hands on his hips and head quirked to the side. He stares at the Brotherhood, studying the waves within for a moment, before shrugging his shoulders. "I think I get it. Like a real nice boat that just sits in the dock all day, ya? Or a ball that don't go blitzed." Finally he looks back up at her and offers a smile, weary as it may be. "Still, though. Kinda think that, y'know, he wouldn't want ya to _have_ to know how to use it." 

And Wakka is right, and Yuna's expression grows a little more sullen as she nods her head and crosses both arms over her chest. "Well—... well, yes, but..." There go the words again. All the intangible power bestowed upon a Summoner and she still can't do something as simple as make others understand. If only she could ball up her emotions and thoughts into a pyrefly and flick it away into the ether so that they could be on full display, for all to see and to know... 

Yuna rubs her eyes. "...you gave it to him to honor Chappu's memory, right?" 

Wakka's face grows a little more tight at the mention of his sibling, but he doesn't miss a beat. "Ya. Guess so, when you put it that way. Felt kinda good to see him carryin' the torch, so to speak." 

"It's the same principle here, I imagine. Even if it's not... strictly necessary, it's nice to know that I can pick up where he left off." And her smile returns, with it coming the careful warmth of recollection and fondness. "That way it's like there's still a piece of him here with me." 

"You don't gotta swing a sword around around know that, but 'ey, if it helps you feel alright about it? I ain't complaining." He slaps an oversized hand against Yuna's shoulder and chuckles. The sensation of skin on skin perturbs her, but Wakka's laughter is always contagious and she finds herself releasing a quiet giggle along with him. 

"Tell you what: I'll show you a thing or two he told me about how he fought back in the day. I don't know nothin' about using a sword, but it's the best lesson you're gonna get here in Besaid, ya?" Wakka grins, and Yuna lights up. Understanding that this is her answer, he gingerly reaches out to take the grip in his hand and heft it up — Wakka is a magnitude stronger than Yuna even with the athlete-turned-Guardian career being exchanged for that of a father, but even he grunts a little as he lifts the sword. 

"So you notice how he was always wavin' the thing around like he was gonna hit a ball or somethin' with it, ya?" He twisted his wrist around to illustrate, moving the tip of the blade in loose circles to imitate its previous owner's rhythmic stance. "Drove me crazy seein' him do that all the time!" 

Finally I ask him why in Yevon's name he does that, 'n he stops for a second and goes, 'Well, mostly it just feels right — I don't like keeping still. But if I don't mess with the balance all the time I'll drop it or fall over!' 'Cus he's a smaller guy than me and can't hold it up too good neither, ya?" That grin. "An' all of a sudden it makes sense why he hits so damn hard, too. He's always windin' it up that way, gettin' it charged up for a real mean one." Using the momentum from the circular motion he sloppily swung at the air, form every bit as unpracticed as Yuna's — to the point where the swing kept going even after it finished its arc and inverted Wakka, burying the Brotherhood back into the ground. He laughed. "Guess you ain't the only one who needs to practice, Yuna." 

She takes that as her cue and reaches out to take the Brotherhood in her hand - _hand,_ not hands, dragging it across the ground and struggling to lift it up just as she was shown. Just like _he_ did. When Yuna lets her list fall slack and allows the momentum to carry the weight from top-to-bottom, she finds it a little bit easier to lift — almost as if the Brotherhood is carrying itself. The momentum builds as she lets it waver in the air, and Yuna rears forward to give it a good _slash…_

...only to topple forward and drop the thing onto the ground as she lands on her knees, still no match for the Brotherhood’s weight. The long silence from that point is broken only by the crash of the waves as Yuna sits on hands-and-knees processing what’s just happened — and is lifted up by a spare hand on the back of her tunic and another contagious laugh. Wakka hits her on the back. “We’ll get there some day, sister. Just gotta keep movin’ forward, ya?”

A smile quirks across Yuna’s lips. She bends over to grip the Brotherhood by its hilt and stand it upright once more, hook in the dirt and pommel against her bleeding palm.

“Yes… I think so.”


End file.
